


Handle with care

by AnythingButPink



Series: Bridge to the future [2]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnythingButPink/pseuds/AnythingButPink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You come between the lads and their daughter at your own peril...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handle with care

He pushed open the post office door and ran a professional eye over the queue. It was pension day, and a dozen OAPs stood in line, their clothes a kaleidoscope of colour running from taupe through beige to khaki.

At the back of the queue a young Chinese woman was rocking a pram back and forth, whispering soothing nothings to the baby inside. And a few places nearer the counter stood a man with a young child on his right hip. The little girl and her father were giggling together and he shuddered at the pain, both physical and emotional, that shot through him as he thought of his own daughter, now living with her mother and his former best friend.

He bit down hard on his discomfort and forced his mind back to the job in hand. It had been nearly five years since he'd taken on this sort of work, and back then he'd usually had said best friend as back up. Now he was alone except for his Browning, its weight simultanously familiar and unfamiliar against his chest.

There was only one person working behind the counter, a middle-aged white woman who could most kindly be described as matronly. He'd persuaded her younger colleague to call in sick today. His natural charm and good looks, not to mention a few vodka and oranges, had worked like a charm. It would keep things simple.

Without turning around he reached behind him to flick the sign on the door from 'Open' to 'Closed'. He drew his weapon and spoke authoritatively over the quiet conversations of the people in the queue. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention. This is a robbery. Put your hands on your heads, keep nice and calm, and we might all get home safely in time for Countdown.”

A fearful murmur ran through the pensioners. The young woman let out a frightened yelp. Doyle tightened his hold on Joanna, who was gazing at the bearded gunman with interest. Probably thinks this is just another of Uncle George's training exercises, he thought.

The gunman glared at Doyle, whose hands were still on Jo rather than on his head.

“I said, hands on your head.” The robber was wearing glasses that looked like Cowley's too. Ridiculously conspicuous in this day and age. A disguise then. Doyle would put good money on that dark, bushy beard getting shaved off before 'Twice Nightly' Whiteley made his teatime appearance.

He remembered Bodie cooling him down at that bloody bowling alley stake-out years before and did his best to once again project the appearance of a seven-stone weakling willing to have sand kicked in his face. “I'd have to put her down to do that, and believe me, she's a lot less trouble in my arms than running around.”

The man glared at him for a long moment. “Fine, but you keep both hands on the kid. I'll be watching you.”

He turned his attention to the post office clerk. “Right, love, you can start getting all the money out.” He walked towards the glass partition, pulling two plastic shopping bags from his pockets. He shoved them through the gap towards her. “Fill 'em up, darlin'. Start with the fifties and twenties eh?”

The room was eerily quiet as she pushed wads of bank notes into the plastic bags. Doyle could hear one old woman stifling quiet sobs behind him. The two Jamaican women in front of him were giving the bearded man the evil eye and, like the elderly white man in front of them, looked like they were itching to give him a piece of their minds. When the second bag was finally full he started to relax. If there was a panic button, the clerk hadn't pressed it. It was looking increasingly likely that the robber was going to walk away and nobody was going to get hurt.

“Papa! Aren't you going to stop the naughty man?” Jo asked in a loud voice. “Won't Uncle George be cross if you let him get away?”

Doyle shut his eyes for a long moment. Opening them, he found Jo sitting back off his hip and looking at him with folded arms and a deep crinkle between her brows. She could only have looked more like Bodie if she'd had one eyebrow hoicked witheringly towards her hairline. He also found the robber's attention and gun focused on him.

“Who the hell is Uncle George?”

“Her godfather. He used to be a soldier and if he were here he would certainly try to stop you. I, however, am here with my daughter and I have no intention of putting her in harm's way by trying to come between you and a clean getaway.”

“Uncle George was a soldier? Just like Daddy?” Jo's eyes were wide with wonder.

“I thought you were her dad?”

“I am.” Doyle sighed. “She has two fathers, okay?”

“That's sick!”

“I don't think someone stealing other people's pension money is on sufficiently high moral ground to make that judgement.”

The man stalked over to stand in front of Doyle, disapproval curling on his hairy upper lip. “You. Shut your mouth,” he spat and slammed the butt of his gun into the side of Doyle's face, breaking open the skin over his cheekbone. Jo screamed and Doyle hugged her tight, ignoring the explosion of pain and the trickle of blood tickling his cheek. “It's okay, sweetheart, I'm okay. It's just a little cut. You can help me put a plaster on it when we get home.”

She sobbed into his shoulder while he soothed her as best he could.

The gunman was back at the counter, pulling his loot through the parcel hatch. With every fibre of his being Doyle was willing the man to walk out of the door when Jo stage-whispered, her breath hot in his ear, “Will CI5 get the horrible man, Papa?”

The man turned from the hatch with a look of delight on his face. “So that's who Uncle George is... Well, well, one of Cowley's boys. And one of his girls too, apparently.” He carried the bags towards the front door and gestured with the gun for Doyle to come towards him.

Doyle started to lower Jo to the ground. “These nice people will look after you until...” The man interrupted him. “No. Bring her too.”

Doyle stood in front of her. She wrapped her arms around his legs. “No. I'll come with you. She stays here.”

The man shrugged. “Either you bring her, or I shoot you both dead now. Your choice.”

Doyle glared at him.

“You think I'm bluffing? Let me show you how much I'm not fucking bluffing.” His gaze travelled the room and settled on the clerk. He shifted his aim and shot her in the chest. Everyone except Doyle and the robber screamed. Jo's grip on Doyle's legs tightened to the point he was in danger of falling over.

“All right. You've made your point.” He reached down to loosen his daughter's grip and pick her up. “Come on, sweetheart. You can stay with me.”

She clung to him desperately and buried her face in his neck. He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “Don't worry. Daddy will come and find us. I promise.”

***

They had clambered into the back of a shabby, white Transit van. Doyle sat, legs braced, against the wall with Jo, a bundle of unhappy tension, in his lap. He sang quietly to her – Something Inside So Strong, Graceland, Sweet Baby James – and felt her start to relax a little. Never had he hoped so hard for Bodie to find him quickly.

***

“He said WHAT?!”

Bodie flung himself out of the chair for a second time and paced back and forth in front of Cowley's desk.

“You heard me Bodie. A million pounds, to be delivered personally by me. And I'm to go alone.”

“You can't be thinking of doing it? … Sir,” he added belatedly.

Cowley glared at him for a moment before his features softened. “I don't see that we have much choice, laddie. Sean Anderson is a nasty piece of work with an axe to grind."

He leaned back in his chair, toying with the empty glass tumbler on his desk. "He and his friend Mickey Cox were a ruthless pair of bank robbers back in the day. Not that anyone ever caught them. But Sean was always a violent man and he made the mistake of committing GBH on the son of a Whitehall mandarin and I was tasked with bringing him in. To add insult to injury, by the time he got out of prison he'd lost his daughter and girlfriend to Cox."

Bodie pulled a face.

"Aye. That's why they're making up the payoff as we speak Bodie. And why you need to focus on finding them.” He stood, the old major pushing aside the everyday bureaucractic wheeler-dealer, “Find them, Bodie. And bring them home, safe and sound.”

Bodie nodded curtly and headed for the ops room.

***

The man was an idiot. Doyle would have happily let him walk away from the post office rather than endanger his daughter, but now that she was at risk all bets were off. The man had dumped them in a cellar, having tied Doyle's hands and ankles. The door had been locked and Doyle had heard heavy bolts being shot on the outside. Pale spring sunlight was pouring through a wide but narrow window that ran at ceiling height down one side of the cellar.

Doyle had watched him drive away, presumably to call the Cow. Now Jo was slowly but steadily unpicking the knots in the clothes line that was binding his wrists. He finally felt the pressure fall away as she happily declared, “Ta-da!”

“Well done, sweetheart,” he said, giving her a hug and kiss. “Let's get my feet free and see what we can find down here to get us out.”

***

The door was never going to shift. No surprises there. More surprising was that their kidnapper had left a crowbar in the room. (Like he'd said, the man was an idiot.) Doyle sat Jo as far from the letterbox-shaped window as possible, covered his eyes with one arm and drove the crowbar into the glass as hard as he could.

He cleared as many of the jagged edges from the frame as he could and then threw his jacket over the edge. He crouched down and held Jo's small hands in his own. “You remember what to do?”

She nodded. He gave her a bright smile and kissed her forehead. “Right then. It's your turn to save the day.”

***

George Cowley stopped the car on the scrubby stretch of wasteland. London had fewer and fewer of these places left. The bankers and the yuppies were developing every inch of land, covering the city with ugly, glass-faced constructions and apartment blocks. He wondered where the next generation of agents and bad guys would meet for their dodgy deals. 

As he surveyed the industrial detritus and thriving wildlife, a battered white Transit van crawled over the rough ground towards him, before stopping a hundred metres away. He waited under the scrutiny of its driver for five minutes. The man's an idiot, thought Cowley. The longer he waits, the more likely it is I could have a sniper in place. But then only an idiot would kidnap Doyle and his daughter...

Anderson had apparently decided it was safe to leave his van. He was walking slowly, hands clasped behind his back like a movie supervillain, checking around him as he came. He stopped ten metres away from Cowley.

“You got the money?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

Cowley sighed. “Yes, all of it. Where are your hostages?”

“I'll call you when I'm a nice long way away. Well, I say I'll call you but it'll actually be your replacement.” He brought his arm round from behind him, levelled the Browning at Cowley's chest and pulled the trigger.

Cowley crumpled and fell heavily to the ground as the bullet hit his chest. As his vision darkened he could hear Anderson pulling the suitcase of money from the car. His last thought was a prayer for Doyle and Joanna.

***

“What did you say, sweetheart?”

“I said,” she repeated impatiently, “I need to make an A1 priority call to my Uncle George at CI5. My papa's call sign is 4.5 and my daddy's call sign is 3.7. And they will be very cross if you don't put me through right now.”

***

Betty started dialling.

“3.7, what is it?”

“I have an urgent call for you, 3.7.”

“But...”

“Putting you through,” said Betty sweetly.

“Daddy?”

Bodie nearly sent the car off the road. “Jo, sweetheart, where are you?”

“In a phonebox.”

“Where is the phonebox?”

“Outside a pink pub with a dog sign.”

"What else can you see?"

"Cars. Shops. Traffic lights..."

Bodie tried another tack. “Where's Papa?”

“He's still in the bad man's house. He couldn't fit through the window.”

“Listen, I'm coming to get you both. Don't hang up.” He snatched up his RT from the passenger seat and clicked it on. “Control, have you got a trace on Jo's call?”

“Roger, 3.7. She's in a phone box outside The Greyhound, on New Kent Road. Do you want us to get the police to pick her up?”

“Negative control, I'm only two minutes away. Any news from Alpha?”

“Nothing yet, 3.7.”

Bodie swore quietly. “Let me know when he calls in. 3.7 out.”

He threw the RT back on to the passenger seat, snatched up the car's radio mic and tried not to cry as he listened to Jo singing Labi Siffre to him.

***

Bodie yanked the phone box door open and threw his arms around his daughter. She clung to him like Corlys Velaryon's proverbial drowning sailor to the wreckage of a sunken ship. “Daddy, Daddy … Papa said you'd find us. I missed you.”

Bodie closed his eyes, lashes wet with tears, and could manage no more than a whisper, “I missed you too, sweetheart.”

When they had both regained their composure, he led her towards the car, pausing to consider the phone box for a moment. “How did you get that door open, Jo?”

She shrugged. “With the crowbar Papa gave me.”

Bodie grinned. “Not just a pretty face your Papa. Now, show me where he is.”

***

The Capri rolled quietly into the alley. Bodie noted the broken window, called in his position over the radio and turned to Jo. “Promise me you'll stay here while I find Papa.”

She sat, a strawberry lace dangling out of both sides of her mouth, nodding solemnly.

“If there's any problem at all you press this and call for help, okay?”

“Yuss,” she lisped around the sweet.

“Good girl,” he kissed her cheek, climbed out of the car and locked it behind him.

He looked up and down the rubbish-filled alley and then dropped to his haunches next to the window. “Ray?”

Nothing.

“Ray?”

Still nothing.

“Dammit.”

He pulled his gun from its holster and carefully approached the nearest door. He pressed his ear to the wood and heard bangs and crashes somewhere inside. Bodie rolled his eyes and tried the handle. Slowly he pulled it open and, having determined the coast was clear, inched his way inside.

The ruckus was occurring in a room to his left. He peered around the corner to see Doyle fighting with a heavily bearded man. Sean Anderson was still clinging to his Browning, despite Doyle repeatedly slamming the hand into any available hard surface. Doyle had both the man's wrists firmly held and was kicking and kneeing any part of his body he could reach.

“Oi!” hollered Bodie.

Both men's heads flicked round towards him. Only one of them looked worried though.

Bodie gave him a wink. "She's fine."

Anderson attempted to bring his gun round in Bodie's direction. Doyle slammed him against a fridge-freezer for a third time.

“Drop it,” ordered Bodie.

“Make me.”

Bodie shot a can-you-believe-this-guy look at his partner.

Doyle inclined his head in that familiar what-can-you-do way. “He will shoot you, you know,” he said. “Can't tell you how dumb it is to come between Bodie and his daughter.”

“You mean _he's_ a poofter too?”

“Sticks and stones, Brian Blessed. The only reason I haven't already shot you is cos the paperwork's a bitch and I want to get our daughter home, so... Drop. It.”

Anderson grimaced and relaxed his grip on the gun so that Doyle could confiscate it.

“You got any cuffs?” said Doyle.

Bodie camped it up in the doorway, “Not in front of the bigot, petal...”

“Moron,” muttered Doyle, swinging Anderson around and pulling his arms behind his back anyway.

“I'll want them back,” said Bodie swinging a pair of handcuffs in his eyeline.

“I'll bet you do.” He slid the cuffs into place and found the click of them closing particularly satisfying. “How's Jo?”

“In the car, stuffing her face with strawberry laces.”

Doyle rolled his eyes. “Apple didn't fall very far from the tree there did it?”

"Lucky for you eh? Rescuing you is clearly in the Bodie DNA."

 "Don't tell the Cow, he'll have her signed up before she's finished primary school."

Anderson snorted.

"Something amusing you, sunshine?" said Doyle, pulling him off the counter at last.

"You won't need to worry about Cowley anymore. I'd say he's knocking on the pearly gates, but knowing him he's probably knocking back scotch with the devil instead."

Neither Anderson nor Doyle was quick enough to see Bodie take a long step forward before driving a sledgehammer punch into the hairy face. The force threw him out of Doyle's grip and on to the floor. Bodie hauled him back to his feet ready for a second go.

"While I appreciate your loyalty, Bodie, none of us wants an inquiry into a death in custody. Do put him down now."

Bodie turned, slack-jawed, at the familiar Scots brogue to see his boss standing, sanguine, in the doorway, a bullet hole in the middle of his shirt.

"Back from the dead, sir?" asked Doyle cheerily.

"Aye, laddie, and in need of a drink. So let's get a move on and get out of here, shall we?"

***

By the time they'd handed over Anderson to two of their former trainees and checked that their boss had suffered nothing worse than a bruise to his chest, Jo was asleep in the back seat of the Capri, one arm wrapped round Muffy, her much-loved cuddly rabbit. The rabbit itself had been bound at the wrists and ankles with strawberry laces.

Doyle slung an arm around Bodie's shoulder and rested his head against his partner's. "She didn't just inherit your sweet tooth you know - there's a boatload of Bodie-courage in those little veins too."

Bodie pressed a kiss to Doyle's forehead. "Yeah? Well she sings like her papa. And dances like him too." He bumped his hip playfully against his partner. "Come on, Astaire, let's get you two home."

***

Doyle lay back on the sofa and rubbed at the two plasters stuck in a cross shape on his cheek.

Bodie appeared from the kitchen carrying two bottles of beer. "D'you want me to kiss that better?"

"The junior house officer did say it would speed the healing process."

"Did she indeed?" He placed the beer on the coffee table next to the sofa, gently straddled his patient and sank a kiss on to the injured cheek. He sucked and kissed his way along Doyle's stubbled jawline until he found his lips and lingered there, re-exploring familiar territory.

Doyle had retrieved his hands from beneath Bodie's thighs and was sliding them, so slowly as to be cruel, along said thighs towards Bodie's groin. 

Bodie moaned softly, reluctantly pulled away from the kiss and muttered, "Time for bed, Zebedee."

"Think I left me bounce in that cellar."

Bodie grinned, "I've enough bounce for both of us, sunshine, come on..."

Doyle caught Bodie's wrist in both hands and ran a thumb softly over the smooth underside, "Bodie..." The word seemed to catch in his throat.

"It's all right, Ray." Bodie laid his free hand on Doyle's cheek and mirrored his partner's slow stroking.

Doyle's eyes shone wet in the half-light. "I've never been more scared in my life. Not next to that fucking nuclear bomb, not even when Mayli shot me. Sending a four-year-old out on her own to get help... Christ, Bodie. If something had happened to her, I couldn't have lived with meself."

Tears slid down his face and on to Bodie's fingers.

Bodie leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Doyle's forehead, "It was the right decision. I wouldn't have found you both in time otherwise." His breath caught in his chest at the imagined horrors he'd been fighting away since the conversation in Cowley's office. "She's a tough cookie, like you said. My nature, your nuture - not to mention the crowbar you gave her - I'd have pitied anyone who tried to get in her way this afternoon."

He kissed Doyle again, "Come to bed and let me take your mind off it."

Doyle placed his hands on Bodie's hips and narrowed his eyes.

"I sometimes think you only want me for my body," he said mock-accusingly.

Bodie's left eyebrow made a unilateral bid to join the hair on its owner's scalp. "How can you say such a thing? There's the charming way you slurp your tea. Your dreadful jokes. The rabbit food in the fridge..."

Bodie kissed his lips once more, soft and promising. 

"...then there's your passion..." He kissed Doyle more intensely.

"...your love..." He spotted a kiss on to the tip of Doyle's nose.

"...your sex..." He slid a hand on to Doyle's groin and gave a gentle squeeze.

"...your money..." He waggled both his eyebrows comically.

"All right, all right, you can stop there," said Doyle.

Bodie dipped forward to whisper in his ear, "I don't like country and western. I don't like rock music, I don't like rockabilly or rock and roll particularly. I don't like much, really, do I? But what I do like, I love passionately."

Doyle groaned. "What have I done to deserve this?"

Bodie stilled above him and his dark eyes were serious as he spoke, "You're helping me build a bridge to the future, Ray."

Doyle's eyes lit up with his smile. "Makes me laugh that people think I'm the deep one in this relationship."

"Never done me any harm to have 'em underestimate me."

 Bodie eased himself off his partner and offered a hand to help pull him up. "You coming for a go on the magic roundabout or what?"

Doyle let himself be raised to his feet and slapped a hand to Bodie's chest. "After you, Florence..."

Bodie whirled slowly on his heels and sauntered towards the bedroom. "Always thought I was more of the Blue Cat meself."

"Bed, Bodie."

Bodie gave him an exasperated look over his shoulder. "I've been saying that for the last five minutes you git."

Doyle adopted a meditative expression. "It's not enough to have a good idea. You must have the right idea at the right time. Ancient Chinese proverb. Probably."

He stopped and looked in to Jo's bedroom. She was curled up in a ball, the covers pulled tight around her. Only her face and Muffy's ears were visible outside the duvet. He leaned against the doorframe as Bodie took a step back towards him.

"Talking of the right idea at the right time," he said softly.

Bodie leaned against the other side of the doorframe. "She's definitely the best idea either of us have ever had."

Doyle reached across and wrapped his fingers around Bodie's hand. "Call in sick tomorrow. Come with us to the zoo."

Bodie beamed at him. "Don't need to call in. The Cow's given me two days off. Me pac a mac and orange squash are all ready to go. All I need to do now is get some sodding sleep, Ray."

Doyle pushed himself upright, kissed Bodie and walked backwards towards their bedroom, grinning and singing softly as he went, "Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow. Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, we can stay all day..."

Another massive thank you to the talented Minori_k for this cute artwork!


End file.
